Growers blame the Government

El Presidente · February 13, 2024

https://oncubanews.com/cuba/siembra-de-tabaco-en-pinar-del-rio-fue-reajustada-y-quedara-por-debajo-del-plan/

Tobacco growers blame the Government for delays in planting: 'They don't give us resources'

'Everything they have said is a lie. They don't give us anything to work with. There is no fuel,' says a producer from Pinar del Río.

Cuban organizing cigars. RAMON ESPINOSA AP

Cuban farmers dedicated to tobacco cultivation in the province of Pinar del Río blamed the Cuban Government for the delays in planting, reported Martí Noticias.

The producers told the aforementioned media that damage still persists after a year and a half after Hurricane Ian. But the main causes of non-compliance are the lack of supplies and fuel, and non-payments to vegueros, issues that depend on the state companies in the sector.

"The situation in the tobacco areas in the province of Pinar del Río is very critical and the Ministry of Agriculture (MINAGRI) wants to burn stages, and that does not work with such a delicate product," warned the leader of the League of Independent Peasants from Cuba, Esteban Ajete Abascal, who explained that one of the main problems is that the tobacco drying houses were not repaired.

"The repair of a tobacco house, first of all, is not done overnight. Apart from that, you have to have a series of supplies that do not exist. They do not have the capacity at the moment, not even fuel, nor transportation, to be able to supply the number of drying houses that are needed, to load the amount of wood from the different places. The hurricane, simply, came to uncover what a failed system has done for 60-odd years," Abascal detailed.

Lázaro Jordano Poveda, a tobacco producer in the San Juan y Martínez municipality (one of the most important territories for this crop), said that the Guajiros cannot afford the high prices of inputs, whose trade is also monopolized by the Government.

"The cuje where the tobacco is inserted, a cuje trip costs me 30,000 to 40,000 pesos. I don't have that money. My tobacco is yellow because they didn't give salt. The salt is to heat the tobacco, so that it doesn't burn. yellowing, so that it has good quality, and you can pick it very green," Poveda explained.

The farmer Daniel Alfaro Frías referred to the consequences of the delay in planting: "Since December, all the lands should have been prepared. Tobacco has its planting time and its harvest time, and to extend it is a drowning kick. "That cannot have the same performance and, furthermore, the quality. The same thing happens with Cuban tobacco that has happened with agriculture: abandonment, lack of interest, lack of resources."

Osmani Poveda Hernández, who works at the Hermanos Saíz tobacco cooperative, in San Juan y Martínez, pointed out that discontent is very great among the farmers, who will have losses in the current harvest. "Everything they have said is a lie. They don't give us resources, they don't give us anything to work with. We can't ask for a little bit of oil to plant because they tell us, flat out, that there is no fuel," said the tobacco farmer.

Official estimates made by the Cuban authorities indicated that the damage caused by Ian in Pinar del Río would require between eight and ten years of recovery for the province to return to its previous state. More than 20 tons of tobacco from the 2022-2023 campaign stored in drying houses got wet and lost during the passage of the meteor.

These statements by farmers come after the Cuban Government exposed the delays in planting. Only 7,700 of the 12,905 hectares of tobacco planned for the current harvest in Pinar del Río have been planted at this point in 2024, so the provincial authorities decided to readjust their production forecast downwards.

According to the official Granma newspaper , the change in expectations occurred despite the fact that the agreed planting program in 2023 has been extended until February 20. With this, the aim is to plant some 10,200 hectares.